AmateurRadio.com

Series Six Episode Four of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :- 

• SA ham elected to First Class Operators Club
• Echolink Node on a Raspberry
• STRaND-1 amateur radio smartphone CubeSat to launch 25 February
• Pirates brought to task
• Renewal of Irish Amateur Radio Licences
• Southern Peninsula Amateur Radio Club at the Rosebud KiteFest
• Mountain Goat award for Welsh radio amateur
• Lottery grant to preserve wartime Ashdown Forest radio transmitter
• Statement about Radio Amateurs' Advanced Examination in Northern Ireland
• 100 Years of Leicester Radio Society (G3LRS)
• Ham radio operators to install radio at Community Church

Your feedback and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) discuss completing your Amateur / Ham Radio Project.

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

I have just sent a new batch of QSLs via GlobalQSL for printing and distributing via the bureau. I like the Global QSL service. It takes away the chore of sending QSL cards and reduces the work to a simple log export to ADIF file.

I had to purchase 1000 new card credits before I could upload them. Today’s batch, from last summer until now, was over 400 contacts on 398 cards. That’s excluding local FM QSOs and contest contacts. I didn’t realize I was so active on the air. At that rate I’ll be ordering another batch before the year is out!

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Six Episode Four of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, mailbag  and Martin (M1MRB & W9ICQ) dicusses completing your amateur / ham radio project.

• SA ham elected to First Class Operators Club
• Echolink Node on a Raspberry
• STRaND-1 amateur radio smartphone CubeSat to launch 25 February
• Pirates brought to task
• Renewal of Irish Amateur Radio Licences
• Southern Peninsula Amateur Radio Club at the Rosebud KiteFest
• Mountain Goat award for Welsh radio amateur
• Lottery grant to preserve wartime Ashdown Forest radio transmitter
• Statement about Radio Amateurs' Advanced Examination in Northern Ireland
• 100 Years of Leicester Radio Society (G3LRS)
• Ham radio operators to install radio at Community Church

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

It’s day four of my hopefully last Windows-to-Linux migration, and so far so good.  I have my HRD log imported into CQRLog and it’s talking to both my Arduino Keyer and Yaesu FT-897.  The Keyer is happily sending CW and CQLog is reading the rig frequency.  The rig control function is very simple and utilitarian compared to HRD’s, but it works.  What I cannot get working is controlling the Kenwood TS-850.  This appears to be a problem with Hamlib, which CQRLog uses via rigctld.

I found that Linux re-enumerates USB /dev/ devices if you unplug one.  For example, I had my Arduino Keyer at /dev/ttyUSB0, my TS-850 interface at /dev/ttyUSB1, and my FT-897 interface at /dev/ttyUSB2.  Upon unplugging the Arduino Keyer and TS-850 interface, the FT-897 became /dev/ttyUSB0, and with nary a mention in syslog.  I find this behavior strange.  But I’m really pleased Linux handles USB device insertions and ejections so well.  Back in the day to do stuff like this you’d have to edit some text file, recompile your kernel, and walk uphill in snow both ways.

To run N1MM I installed Virtualbox and within that installed a very bare bones Windows XP installation.  This enables me to run Windows XP as a virtual machine within Linux, without rebooting.  N1MM installed and ran without a hitch in the virtual machine. I was reminded N1MM likes to install in C: root, like it’s 1994 on Windows 3.1.  But I digress.  Attaching host USB devices to virtual machines in Virtualbox is a piece of cake and I had N1MM talking with the 850.  So I’ve got my contesting needs covered.

It occurred to me that it wouldn’t take much to get CQRlog to do basic contest logging.  It already has cw interface keying and function key definitions and macros.  All it really needs is serial number generation with corresponding function key macros, previous QSO report lookup, and perhaps a little more field customization.  This would cover the basics.  One can handle scoring outside the program, but a band map with the DX cluster integrated would be the next feature on the list.  I may just look at the source code and see if I can make sense of it and maybe play around with some customizations.  I sense another project I’m going to get sucked into.

So far I haven’t had to go back to my native Windows installation for anything, other than to steal more disk partition space.  Maybe I cheated a little by installing an instance of Windows XP on Virtualbox, but hey, whatever gets the job done!

(Update: I just found the CQRLog band map window and it is integrated with the DX cluster!)

Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.

Back in December when my second Elecraft K2 kit arrived I tossed around the idea of starting an additional blog about my K2 build. I planned to not only document my kit build but to keep the site updated with links and sites that will help out fellow builders. I have up to this point produced 3 pages and some updating posts on the blog itself. Check out the blog and give me  your feedback as well as any info you would like to see on the site as well.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Fifteen metres was again in good shape today. The contacts I made included the prettiest ham I’ve yet worked, and the station with the longest call I’ve ever logged.

Natali, RV3ADL

Call me a male chauvinist if you like, but whenever I work a YL (young lady) on the bands I can’t resist looking to see if I can find a picture of her. I worked Natali from Moscow on PSK31 this afternoon and she must be the prettiest ham radio operator I’ve worked in my long career. She keeps a pretty neat shack, too.

The prize for the longest callsign ever logged goes to YO2013EYOWF which is the official call of the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival 2013 in Brasov, Romania. I pity anyone having to send that in CW! I don’t have any pictures of the YO2013EYOWF operators but they do have a very pretty logo which I expect will be on their QSL.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

In the last couple of weeks I have received two eQSLs for contacts that never happened. The QSLs were from made-up callsigns that are clearly SWLs, e.g. UA-123456. But the message with the card says simply: TNX For QSO TU 73! Curiously, both QSLs contained exactly the same wording.

Now I have nothing against SWLs. I started in this hobby as a broadcast SWL and I feel that all hams should have had experience as an SWL to get familiar with procedures, propagation and so on. But I am uncomfortable with receiving eQSLs from listeners as the eQSL system has no way to distinguish a listener report from an actual contact so their presence messes up my totals.

In practice it isn’t a big mess-up as I have never received an SWL card from a country I haven’t had a proper QSO with. So I do accept eQSLs that make it clear they are for reception of a contact I made. But TNX FOR QSO? Who do they think they are kidding, and what do they hope to gain from it?

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].